Biting Off Too Much
by Makori
Summary: Yuffie gets bored one day and decides to read a book about parallel dimensions.  Before she finishes, however, she winds up in one! And if that wasn't bad enough, a civil war pushes her miles away from the gate that brought her here. YuffieOC
1. Prologue: Run From the Devil

(A/N: This is only meant to pique your curiousity. Yes, it may seem confusing because there's not enough detail. However, as the story progresses, read this piece again and you'll find that certain pieces fall into place. The first real chapter should be up within the next week.))

**Biting Off Too Much**

**Prologue**

If someone had stopped at the top of the ridge and looked out over the rest of the island, they would most probably have stopped and enjoyed the view. Maybe sit down and watch. Both of the small twin suns that scorched the land were setting, one east, the other north. The sunlight that was still in the sky shone down on hard, red soil, a red dirt scrubland covered mostly by short, stubby bushes. Occasionally, there was a taller tree here or there to provide some shade. During the hotter parts of most days, the animals of the island, whether they were carnivore, herbivore, bug or beast, would call a natural ceasefire and relax in this shade. Now that the sun was setting, however, the daytime creatures were preparing to bed down while the nocturnal species were starting to wake.

It would be a beautiful, picturesque scene.

Except for one last factor that has yet to be added in: the only people around weren't concentrating on the sunset, or the view from the ridge, or anything to do with that at all.

They were concentrating on not getting killed.

Yuffie clung close to him as they flew down the ridge. Their mount dodged around bushes, leapt over rocks, crashed through thorn patches, while the driver kept one hand on the reigns, the other hand on his head, where a dusty, worn and battered cowboy hat was pulled over a filthy green bandanna tied around his head. She could hear the other riders also crashing through obstacles, though some were having a more difficult time of it.

Those were the ones who were wounded.

They were the least likely to live through this.

What they were all running from made itself known when they reached halfway down the hill. The rattle of automatic gunfire, accompanied by the booms of tossed explosives, reptilian snarls and growls from the creatures they were running from…and the screams of the other riders and their mounts as they died, one by one.

A large, scaly, three toed foot finally crashed through a log as their mount made it to the bottom of the hill. Without pausing at all, the giant avian continued its flight towards open ground, out of the gunners' range. The driver kept urging the creature on, untried by the bullet wound in his torso that was, even now, pumping blood down his side, over Yuffie's arms, which were wrapped around his waist, and down his leg.

Given a few more minutes and the faithful Terror Bird, as it was sometimes called, could have propelled all three of them to safety, out of range…if not for the fact that the gunners fired a mortar.

With a screech of agony, the Brutornis was knocked off its feet, spilling its riders in transit. The great bird flopped around in pain a few times, screeching, then died at the crack of a heavy rifle from the ridge.

Yuffie and the rider rolled into a ditch, both collecting fresh new wounds. Yuffie felt her head bounce off a large rock, and her vision blurred, screwing up her senses. She could feel herself blacking out, could feel the wound in her head, could see the red tinge around her blurry vision.

She could still hear perfectly, though.

"Oh, shit! Yuffie! Yuffie, listen, you have a wound in your scalp, and you might be having a concussion right now, but whatever you do, don't move or talk!"

The voice of the other rider…the man who'd protected her ever since she came to this damned island.

"Lionel…" she managed to whisper before she blacked out.

The last thing she heard before she blacked out was the boom of a shotgun above her, accompanied by the screech of a giant reptile in pain.

And then she knew no more.

((Now, like I said, this is confusing, but you'll get it eventually. The entire story is actually started by Yuffie's curiousity as she reads one of Merlin's books when bored...))


	2. A New World, A New War

((A/N: This long enough? Don't get used to the quicker updates. I'm still gonna wait a week before putting the next chapter out. Or, if I don't have at least one more review by that time, I'll wait until I get one.))

**Biting Off Too Much**

**Chapter 1**

Yuffie was bored. No, scratch that…she was _very_ bored.

Right after Sora left Radiant Garden, the Heartless and Nobodies had suddenly seemed to vanish with him, leaving everyone confused. Of course, the monsters didn't disappear altogether. There was still the usual warping of weaker kinds of Nobodies, as well as the spasmodic trickle of Heartless from the Great Maw. However, neither black nor white seemed to pour much effort into it. Their numbers were at an all time low, lower even than before Sora showed up the first time, and they were all so…weak.

Seriously.

Yuffie could throw her shruiken once and shred apart an entire group of about twelve Dusks max. That was how weak they were. In fact, they were so easily defeated that the Militia, newly formed by Leon as an added defense, had almost no trouble with either side, taking very few casualties. The gun-wielding ragtag soldiers were low in numbers, but still made up for it with new laser rifles, designed by Cid and based off some blueprints from Ansem's computer, and unwavering courage.

It was all so glorious…that Yuffie wanted to puke. Those damn cowboys, who didn't even have a standard uniform, were taking away all her fun! She didn't have anything to do anymore!

Leon was busy trying to recruit and supply the Militia as well as rebuild the town, Aerith was occupied trying to help refugees and citizens get food and clothes, Cloud was busy hunting that Sephiroth dude, and not even Cid was available to be bugged! Most of the time, he was on his computer, trying to link up with Ansem's to get more blueprints to improve weapons, buildings, and maybe start making some vehicles. In fact, Cid was pounding the keys so often that he was pulling more and more overnighters, a routine which quickly led him to being crankier, needing coffee almost all the time, and back to his smoking habits. His excuse for that was that no matter how much he chewed on 'damned sticks,' his lungs weren't going to get any better. However, Cid had been forced by Merlin to get rid of his coffee maker, particularly after an incident which involved spilled coffee, ruined books, and a coffee machine getting turned into a frog. Now Cid walked back to the market plaza to get his coffee, which he got for free since he was on the Restoration Committee.

Now was one of those times, and Yuffie had seized the opportunity to…crash in front of his computer. Currently, she was sprawled across the chair, flipping a throwing star between her fingers lazily while staring off into space. There was no one to bug, nothing to defeat. She'd even tried challenging the Militia soldiers to arm wrestling contests on the condition that she would strip for them if she lost. Since she didn't mention anything about if she won, the men were eager to do it, and figured it to be a win-win situation easy. Instead, however, they all found their fists pounded into the table with no effort. Yuffie had gone through all two-hundred Militia men in three hours, and was even now seriously considering letting one of them win just to have something to do.

However, once more something in the back of her head nudged at her eyes, and they flickered over to the stacks of books that made up Merlin's living area. The wizard had so many of the things, she doubted he'd read them all. Yet, somehow, he knew all that magic…

Yuffie had contemplated several times about going through Merlin's library and finding a good book to curl up with. However, from where she sat, she couldn't see any of the titles. She looked over her shoulder at the door. Cid had left five minutes ago, and he always took at least thirty minutes on a coffee break to get himself reenergized. Yuffie slowly put down the throwing star, rising from the chair to creep over to Merlin's part of the house. Surprisingly, not even the magician wasn't here either, even though he was almost always studying some book or making some spell. This time, however, she seemed to have lucked out, since he'd gone off to do something else. If her luck held, he had diarrhea and was taking a magical potty break.

Woohoo.

Yuffie looked around once more, as if convinced something was going to interrupt her, then quickly started browsing through the volumes. She instantly discounted many, mostly because they had boring titles, no titles at all, or were in a different language. There were a few she tossed over her shoulder into a pile to burn in order to spare Merlin some mercy. No one deserved to have a book on how to…never mind.

She searched for another five minutes, and just when she was about to give up, she spotted something under Merlin's pillow. Glancing at the door again, she stole over to the bed, then pulled the book out. It wasn't very big, about the size of the average paperback book except somewhat thick, and was leather-bound, with faded golden lettering. The title was **Parallel Dimensions and Dimension Gates: Magic or Science? A Study On Alternate Worlds.** Underneath was a picture of a keyhole. Yuffie cocked her head. Curious…even people from other worlds thought the way between the worlds was a keyhole…The author was some dude named Nikolai Kaslov. She could barely pronounce the name in her head.

Once more, she glanced at the door before skipping back to Cid's chair, plopping down, and flipping the book open to the first page. Foreword…blah. Table of Contents…ugh. Finally, she found the first chapter, and started reading.

_Chapter One: An Introduction to Alternate Worlds_

_ Though many people consider this world to be the only one in existence, there are others who put forward theories of separate parallel universes. Some people think of primitive wastelands with cavemen and dinosaurs. Some people think of futuristic realms with robots and lasers. And still more people think it is a load of bull feathers about magic tricks. But before we can consider any of these possibilities, we must ask ourselves what exactly we are talking about. Sure, we have no evidence of the existence of parallel worlds, but at the same time, we have no evidence of there __**not**__ being one in existence. But, what is a parallel dimension? What is there that is not here? How many of them are there? And can we reach them? If we consider worlds to be living, breathing entities, one for every person alive, then there could be billions. And that actually makes it a whole lot easier to explain._

Yuffie had reached the end of the first page, and she had to admit by now, she was definitely curious. She turned the page, intending to continue, but she never read the next page. Or, at least, never on that world.

Stuck on the next page was a Post-It note, with spidery handwriting she recognized as Merlin's. It read _This man may be on the right track. It seems Terra has more than one genius in a thousand idiots._ Scrawled underneath was what looked to be one of Merlin's spells. And written underneath that was a single word: _Door._

Yuffie stared at the note, frowning. Reaching out, her fingers traced over the incantation, which was written in a strange language. She'd heard Merlin practicing them out loud before, so she knew how to pronounce the individual parts, but the whole word made no sense. Magic really wasn't her thing, and when she tried it she almost always messed up. However, this time, for some reason, she felt a surge of confidence. She closed the book, slipping it into her pocket, and stood up, staring at the words she needed to say, lips soundlessly tracing them and her mind saying what each one sounded like. Finally, she felt she had a good enough handle on it and decided to try it out loud.

"Apra la direzione, da questo mondo al seguente, impedire l'ordine testo giusto diventante."

She was sure she stumbled a few times, and was thinking that maybe she wasn't really cut out for magic after all…then something exploded. There wasn't a boom or anything, more like a flash and a bunch of blue smoke. Yuffie coughed a few times, waving her hands around to try and clear up the place.

What she saw when it cleared was the last thing she expected, though.

What she expected was the place to be a complete mess. What she saw, though, was a hole in the wall. Well, not really a hole in the wall itself. It actually looked like a world's keyhole, but this keyhole didn't lead to the heart of the world: it lead to another world altogether. It was a…Yuffie pulled the book back out of her pocket again and looked at the cover. Two words stuck out to her: a dimension gate. Surely, if the ways to other worlds could be up in outer space, there could be some in the worlds themselves?

Tucking the book back in her pocket, Yuffie wondered if she should tell someone else about this…

'Nah! Why let them have all the fun?' she thought, and climbed through the keyhole.

At first, she thought she had just woken up from a daydream and nothing had happened. She was still standing in a dirty old shack. Except, when she looked over her shoulder, there was the dimension gate, and she still held the book. Cautiously, she crept across the empty room to a dirty window, and wiped it off to look out at this new world she had found.

She had to say, she was actually disappointed. The view she had was from a high cliff, overlooking a small town in a canyon. To the right, the canyon stretched on and on inland, but to the left, right after the town the canyon, and for that matter the land, ended in ocean. The town itself wasn't very much. Mostly just about two dozen adobe buildings reinforced with wood. She could see a hotel, a general store, a livery stable (though she couldn't see any mounts yet) and a boathouse down at the single pier that served as the port, as well as other buildings that she determined were simply houses. The dock itself stretched out for about six-hundred feet and was made of rickety wood that she could tell, even from her elevated position, wouldn't last even two more months without repairs.

There were about sixty or seventy people milling around, all of them, as Yuffie could see, tense and uneasy, as if expecting something bad. And they were all toting weapons. Guns, specifically, but not like any Yuffie had seen before. She recalled a specific part of the book and checked the first page again to make sure.

_What is there that is not here?_

Yuffie looked back out the window. That's right. Every world was completely different from another, and even if they had some things in common, those things were still vastly different. Like how the Radiant Garden had lasers, while the guns she was used to, like those used by the Sephiroth remnants in the Geostigma crisis, could use several more, even twice as many, bullets than any other gun she'd seen used in Hallow Bastion before it was renamed Radiant Garden. In fact, these guns looked somewhat like those she'd seen used by the Traverse Town Guard force, when they were actually able to scrounge up a large enough force.

Before she could ponder any more about the differences between the weapons of the different worlds, however, Yuffie heard panicked shouts from below, and peeked back out the clean spot on the window at the town. There was a lot of activity below. People were running to defensive positions in buildings, jumping into trenches she hadn't seen, and a few more ran into the stable, coming back out with strange mounts. All she could say from this distance was that they were giant birds, like chocobos, but that was where the similarities ended.

However, once again, Yuffie was cut off in the middle of her comparing by another loud distraction: a distant boom and an increase in the volume of the panicking below. She looked through the window once more and saw the men scattering, most of them ducking back into trenches, foxholes and the buildings. The men who were mounted started moving **away** from the buildings.

Yuffie suddenly understood what was going on: she'd walked right into a world in the middle of a war. And it didn't sound like against Heartless or Nobodies.

Whistling rang out from the sky, and for whatever reason, she heard a voice, which she suspected was closer than the men in the street, yell out "TAKE COVER! THEY'RE SHELLING THE CLIFFS FIRST!"

Oh, crap…

Yuffie quickly moved for the door as the whistling continued to get louder and louder, and she managed to kick the door open before the building exploded behind her. She was thrown forward, off of the cliff and onto a ledge, where she managed to catch hold of the lip of it. She looked down at her hand and saw that she had somehow managed to keep a hold on the book. She tucked it into her pocket, knowing she would have to read it later.

Before she could haul herself up, however, there came another shout: "RETURN FIRE! STAGGER THE RATE AND KEEP SWITCHING TARGETS!"

Oh crap again…

The booms rang out again, except this time they were a hell of a lot louder, since they were practically right next to her, just down in some caves a few meters below the wreckage where the gate was. She had to find a way to get up there. However, a big gun went off straight over her just as she was climbing over the lip of the ledge, disorienting her senses and making her fall again. This time, she didn't stop until she crashed right through a roof about a half-story below her. She could still get up, though, she'd taken worse falls than that. However, when she did, she discovered an extremely bad headache…or was it just confusion from the explosions?

Both sides were shelling the other now, and it sounded like the cliff was being demolished, which meant…

Yuffie could feel the rumble before she heard it, and barely managed to find the exit before, once again, the building got demolished behind her. This time, however, she was on the ground, and got away from the worst of it without falling. However, a new threat had presented itself. Though the cliff had been shelled because of the gun positions, now that those guns were silent, the artillery was directed at the town itself…and it came from two different directions. Yuffie looked up and spotted a giant, dark shape in the sky, as well as one on the sea. A zeppelin and a battleship…that was what was shelling the town. However, the enemy, whoever they were, apparently had one last card up their sleeve to throw down.

"LANDING CRAFT! LOOK OUT! DEATHRUNNER CAVALRY AND HEAVY WEAPONS!"

Yuffie had forgotten all about the soldiers on the ground, but now they were rushing past her toward the shore, foot soldiers and bird-riders both rushing towards the beach, running on a straight, uninterrupted route despite the rain of death in the form of explosive shells blasting them apart. Yuffie decided that, since she liked life better than spending eternity sleeping six feet under, she had no other choice but to follow them. Hell, who knew what could happen? Maybe she could help turn the tide of this battle.

As it turned out, nothing could have saved any of them from what happened.

There were three landing crafts, each about forty-five feet long and twenty feet wide. As soon as they came within range, the ragtag soldiers on land opened fire with automatic weapons, heavy rifles, and even a mounted machine gun. It did no good, however, since none of them had any explosives. The landing craft made it to shore relatively unharmed except for a lot of bullet holes. As soon as each craft beached, the hatches were dropped, and then all hell broke loose.

The enemy, clad in bright blue uniforms, sent out heavy weapons first, in the form of grenadiers chucking explosives, others working in pairs to haul machine guns around, and at least one flamethrower for each craft. They mowed down the advancing wave of ragtag troops with the skill and coordination of well-trained troops. However, they were only the groundbreakers. As the heavy weapon troops moved aside, regular infantry wielding assault rifles piled out, at least ten or fifteen to a craft. But even they were not the cherry on top.

After them came a horrifying sight.

Yuffie had been able to dodge the torrent of bullets that had come her way and even managed to snap off a few throwing stars at the enemy, also managing to get about four hundred feet away from the center craft when she saw them. Four giant reptiles, each at least five feet high at the hip, paced out of each craft, hissing at their soon to be prey. They had riders on their backs who were restraining them for now, but the creatures were most definitely going to be put to the one thing they obviously did best: running and killing. Yuffie knew what they were. She was familiar with dinosaurs, but had never actually seen one before. The raptor-like creatures had orange under bellies and half of their tail was blue. Other than that, their skin was a dark red that could easily have been mistaken for blood. When their mouths opened up to snarl at their opponents, Yuffie could easily see two rows of dagger-like teeth on both the top and bottom jaws. A black tongue hung out of the side of one's mouth, and it fixed it's hungry yellow eyes specifically on the ninja in front of it with such malice that Yuffie quickly skidded to a halt.

It was at this point that the un-uniformed men decided it was time to hightail it, and those who were still alive began to pull a quick and hasty retreat. However, the raptors shot out like bullets and tore into the defenders. The one who had fixed on Yuffie ran straight for her like a missile locked onto a target, its rider yelling a war cry and brandishing his pistol before being knocked off by a well-aimed bullet from a sniper back in the defender's lines. However, that _thing_ was still after her, and she tried to get away from it by going around obstacles, ducking through trenches, and going through the splintered half of one of the buildings close to the shore. It didn't work. The creature still followed, drawn by ravenous hunger and a thirst for blood.

Finally, in a last ditch effort to escape, Yuffie lunged toward the stable doors, which were currently closed. She pounded on them for a few seconds before they finally opened, and she fell inside. Unfortunately, whoever was behind the door couldn't shut it in time before the raptor managed to shove its head inside.

However, before anyone else could move, a harsh voice yelled "ALRIGHT, DAMMIT! I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU THAT ALL UNWELCOME VISITORS WERE TO STAY OUTSIDE! I THINK THIS QUALIFIES AS UNWELCOME!"

Yuffie managed to pull her head up before her vision was obscured by a bloodstained apron and the boom of a shotgun filled her ears. The raptor, screaming in pain, pulled its head out of the door, but by now the doorman had drawn his sidearm, a double-action revolver, and shot it in the eye. The raptor jerked outside, thrashing around in rigor mortis while the door was pulled shut.

Yuffie was breathing hard now. What happened? At first, she had been having some fun dodging bullets and grenades to get close to the enemy, a workout she'd been needing for a long time, and then when she'd seen those _things_ she'd just gone downhill. Suddenly, the gunfire and explosions had seemed to confuse her, the bullets had seemed to get too close, and she had to get the hell out of there.

Before she could have another thought, however, a hand fell on her shoulder. A hand that felt heavier than its size seemed to betray. She slowly peered down at that hand, and then felt herself freeze over.

The hand was metallic.

A voice spoke behind her as the owner of that hand said "What the hell are you doing out here, Princess? This is a war zone, all the non-combat civvies were sent to the mines on the other side of the island. Don't tell me you were out there fighting, you don't even have a gun. Unless…"

She felt the hand change position as the speaker moved around to look her in the face, and she had a good look at her rescuer. He was a dirty teen, couldn't have been much older than her, with some acne peppering his cheeks. His nose was crooked, as if it had been broken at one point and never healed properly. Above that nose was a set of shatter sharp ice blue eyes, staring at her with frigid intensity. He wore a filthy green bandanna on his head, but his dirty blonde hair, greasy and long past the due haircut, poked out from underneath. The longer part in the back was pulled back into a rough ponytail only about two inches long, tied back with a piece of dirt twine and not looking like it had ever been removed. He was wearing what seemed to her like a brown button up shirt, but further examination showed it to simply be so filthy that it had gone from white to brown. The right sleeve, the arm that was metal, had been torn away, and there was blood soaked into the small piece of the sleeve remaining attached to the shoulder part. The left sleeve was still on, but had been rolled up past his elbow, and his left hand was bloody, but still holding a pump action shotgun. She took a glance down at his metallic right hand and realized that it too was covered in blood. He wore the bloodstained apron over the shirt, and it stretched down to his knees, which were covered by filthy, torn black denim jeans, of which the bottoms of the leggings brushed muddy, dirt-encrusted hiking boots.

His cracked lips, dry from going so long without water, opened and said, in a slightly lighter voice, "Was that the first time you've seen a Tyrannoraptor?"

Yuffie instantly knew that he was talking about the monster that had chased her in and nodded, still feeling too scared to speak. The teen in front of her nodded, saying "That explains it. For some reason, they have that sort of effect on inexperienced troops. Lemme guess, all of a sudden the battle seemed that much more vicious, right?"

Again, she nodded. He smiled a bit, his cracked lips bleeding slightly, and said "It's completely normal. Just gotta get your battle senses. If you live 'til the next one, that is."

A moan of pain further back in the stables made the youth look over her head, then stand up, pulling her unceremoniously to her feet, saying "I need you to help with the wounded here."

He brushed past her, and she turned to see him setting the shotgun aside to treat at least fifteen wounded men and about six wounded women…and there was no one else to help.

Yuffie was stunned. In traditional Heartless and Nobodie battles, the bodies usually disappeared with the soul, and there were no wounds, only death. This was far, far worse, however.

Yuffie was frozen solid by the sight of the blood and the boy's mechanical arm opening like a Swiss army knife, though not as much by the latter as the former. The hand remained intact, but several surgical instruments popped out of the mechanical bicep, and he began to get back to work.

Yuffie could only manage one more sentence.

"W-who the hell are you?"

The youth looked back at her, his eyes suddenly tired in the dim light.

"My name's Lionel."

((One last thing. The spell is written in Italian, because it is such an awesome language, and when translated reads "Open the way, from this world to the next, to prevent order from becoming just text." You'll see that this spell was created to get to this world specifically later on.))


	3. Pulling Out of Hell

((A/N: I'll say only one thing: you guys are so damn lucky I love this idea! Warning: Some OOC may show up, I don't know, I never played FFVII, but I own Advent Children, so I know what happened!))

**Biting Off Too Much**

**Chapter 2**

Yuffie tightened the bandages on the bullet wound her current patient had. She had gone through two or three men already, and every time the stable doors opened, more were either dragged in or the enemy soldiers had found the makeshift hospital. The rattling of a sub-machine gun and the boom of a shotgun were quick to remedy the latter, however.

Despite the fact that Yuffie was inside, away from the fighting, she was still shaking with fright. The squawking bird-mounts that were left weren't helping either. She'd never been in a battle fought like that. Almost no physical contact, just slaughter with guns and explosives. And monsters…that she was used to, at least.

Her hands were already soaked in blood up to her elbows when she yelled "Done! Who's next?" Several shouts greeted her. The doorman, a middle-aged man named Moshe, couldn't help them out because someone needed to hold the door shut. Yuffie moved to the soldier nearest her, a woman in her late twenties with blonde hair and a giant gash going from just under her ribcage diagonally across her abdomen. It she hadn't been laying down, her guts would have spilled out.

"What happened to this one?" Yuffie shouted over to Moshe. He was incredibly adept at telling how a person got a wound simply by looking at them. The man shook his head and replied, over the gunfire and screams outside "T-rap got 'er."

When Yuffie cocked her head at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and replied "The goddamn growly things with the teeth and claws."

Yuffie blinked in surprise. Surely that should've been obvious, even if she hadn't a handle on this world's slang. Nodding shakily, she looked down at the woman again. She was losing a lot of blood, and if Yuffie didn't do anything to patch up that gash, the woman was doomed.

Panicking now, she yelled "Lionel! I got a bad one here!"

Lionel, who was currently fishing for shrapnel in a man's arm with a magnet, since his metallic fingers had no nerves and therefore he couldn't tell when he found the piece, yelled back over his shoulder "Kinda busy! What's it like?"

Yuffie didn't even have to glance down.

"Belly wound, straight across, heavy bleeding, Moshe says it came from a T-rap," she explained, using the slang term she had just learned. Lionel immediately straightened and started walking over to her, the magnet retracting into his arm and being replaced by a scalpel, several clamps, and a needle as well as a spool of silk. She stepped over to his patient, digging around in the man's arm. There was no anesthetic available, but all the soldiers managed to grit their teeth, bite back their tears and take the pain. It was as if they already knew that screaming wouldn't help.

And suddenly, there was silence outside. All the gunfire and explosions simply stopped.

Yuffie froze, shrapnel shard in hand, and looked at the door. Lionel stood from his crouching position, thread still dangling from sewing up the woman's stomach, which he had finally stopped bleeding. Moshe looked up at the top of the door, then at the bottom, then he finally moved his body. The door slowly swung open, and Moshe peered out, cautiously.

He only had a half second to yell out half a warning before a snarl broke the silence and a reptilian head suddenly flashed in and grabbed the man by the shoulder. Moshe yelled out, dropping his sub-machine gun as he was yanked outside. Lionel leapt forward, no visible weapon in hand, and Yuffie was wondering if he was going to try and take on the monster with a scalpel and bare fists, when his robotic arm suddenly flipped around, changing shape. Certain parts slid down his arm, making space for more parts from within his arm. In the space of the few seconds it took him to get over to the door, Lionel had transformed his hand into a revolver, and was currently flipping it open to shove in six pistol rounds that he had extracted from his pocket. The door was still open, and Yuffie could hear Moshe being torn apart…literally. One of the man's arms landed right in her vision, covered in blood, tattered cloth and teeth marks. Lionel fired outside with his new gun-arm, then started pushing the door closed with his shoulder. When a snarl sounded from outside, he fired without moving, simply lifting the gun a little higher. The revolver wasn't very powerful, so he had to fire a few rounds outside to get his desired results.

Yuffie had finally managed to unfreeze herself to get over to Lionel, and started pushing against the door as well. However, she froze once more when she heard the blood chilling snarl again, but with a powerful mental yank she made the decision that she would no longer let fear of this devastating new kind of warfare control her. A throwing star appeared in her hand, and with a flick of her fingers, she buried it in the eye of a Tyrannoraptor. A scream of pain like none other she had ever heard before rang out, piercing her ears and making her wince. It sounded more like taking two large rusted metal sheets and rubbing them against each other. She shook her head, but otherwise kept pushing. Lionel seemed unaffected, and the only response that he gave was to fire a few more shots from his revolver-hand before it went _click-click_ and said it had run out of ammo. Lionel swore, and she could tell that he had a mouth as bad as Cid's was when he went too long without a coffee break.

The door was almost shut when a chatter of erratic gunfire met their ears, and splinters started flying off the door. The enemy was firing on them! Lionel abandoned the door and leapt at Yuffie, knocking her to the floor before he stood up again, shotgun in hand, and stuck the barrel around the corner, firing until the gun ran empty. Ducking back down, in the middle of reloading, he froze suddenly. Then, gradually, Yuffie heard it too. More gunfire, but from further away. However, it was forcing the current volleying away from them. And it was lessening the enemy gunfire! The troops Yuffie was 'with' had found them!

Lionel sprang up, shotgun at the ready, and looked through the now completely open door once again. Sure enough, the blue uniforms were falling back to the beach, and there wasn't a single standing raptor around. The view when the dust settled, however, quickly killed his good mood.

There was barely anything left standing of the town. The lighthouse was demolished, half of the hotel was gone, and there was only splinters left of the general store, which would make sense because it was where all the ammo was stored. Almost all of the houses were gone, and the buildings that had stood on the cliffs, as well as the artillery positions, were all gone, swept away in the barrage and following landslide. The street stretching down the middle of the town was layered in bodies and blood. Impact craters from the artillery littered the entire area, and it seemed as though the stable was, thankfully, the only place that still stood in one piece. From makeshift foxholes and trenches, as well as firing spots behind stacks of bodies as well as in craters came 'their' soldiers. There wasn't a single one that didn't have a wound, and all of them were drenched in blood. None of them was wearing a uniform, and they seemed more like, well, rebels than actual soldiers. There were about thirty of them left, men and women ranging in age from early teens to middle-aged adults, all toting weapons, be they heavy rifles, automatic weapons, shotgun, heavy machine guns or even, she only saw one of these, a half tube that looked more like a slingshot that turned out to be a grenade launcher. Yuffie peered out at them all, suddenly shy. She'd never seen anyone with such fierce and triumphant looks. It was almost like they were animals.

Lionel set the shotgun down, leaning against the side of the stable and looked around, wiping all the instruments in his mechanical arm to get the blood off so that they wouldn't rust and jam. He looked up at who Yuffie assumed to be the leader, a woman about two feet taller than herself, frizzy blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, more muscle mass on her body than even Cloud. She was carrying a machine gun by herself, whereas the other heavy weapons crews were in pairs, one to handle the gun, one to carry the ammunition, but this woman simply had the ammo coming out in a belt through the top of a backpack. Currently, she was resting the large gun on her shoulder and was looking down at Lionel with a grim look on her face.

"The wounded…how many are there?"

Lionel scoffed, spitting out something that looked suspiciously like tobacco and said "You mean those who actually stand a chance of living through their wounds? About seven."

Yuffie's eyes widened at this. There were at least thirty people in the stable, and he was labeling twenty-three of them with a doom brand?

"W-wha…WHAT?! YOU'RE JUST GONNA LEAVE TWENTY PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU SAY THAT THEY CAN'T MAKE IT!"

She didn't know what possessed her to blow up like that, but next thing she knew, she was up in his face, yelling up a storm at him, bloody fists clenched in fury.

It was weird.

Ever since she got here, something had been pulling down who she was and leaving someone else there. Suddenly, battles shook her, blood creeped her out, a certain species of giant lizard terrified her, and she was just getting angry at people right off the bat that normally wouldn't even make her frown.

Yuffie spun around to the big woman and snarled "Where the hell am I, anyway?"

"Ok, so maybe I shouldn't have yelled at her like that, but she didn't have to hit me!" Yuffie snarled, massaging her cheek. The woman, Donna, had immediately backhanded her as soon as Yuffie was finished yelling.

Currently, they were in the stable, helping up those who could make it out. Those who couldn't would be told of their condition and left to their own devices with some medical supplies. It was sick, Yuffie thought, but Lionel explained that it had been happening all across the Hyluric Isles, which was where they were, for the past fifty years, which was how long this war had been going. The 'enemy' was the Addumanese Union, who had slowly been conquering island chains for colonizing. Or so they said.

"It's actually an enslavement conquering." Lionel had told her as he helped up the woman with the now stitched up belly gash. She was weak from blood loss, but Lionel said she was fit to travel. "They take an island and put the people to five times what they were normally working to bring out more gems. It's more like a concentration camp. A lot of the workers die in the first week."

It was either a civil war or a revolution, she wasn't sure. She hadn't expected any of this. Somehow, this world had not yet been touched by the Heartless, even though there was darkness everywhere on this world.

There was one more detail she hadn't expected, though. As soon as she asked the question, she thought that everyone would become confused. Instead, most of them rolled their eyes and nodded, and one of them even asked which world she was from. Somehow, these people knew about other worlds already. Lionel was able to give a vague response about that too.

"Aw, hell, things are always screwy here. This place is actually more like a crossroads between the worlds. If you look up at the stars at night, you'll find many more constellations than any other world. The land is illuminated, even when the moons are dormant. This world isn't really a world, more like a place to fill in the gaps."

Yuffie's head was, even now, reeling with the information she had received. Too…much…knowledge.

She looked over at the cyborg medic, who was helping another soldier up onto one of the giant bird mounts. She frowned, asking "What are those things? They look a little like chocobos."

In truth, the only thing the two species had in common was the fact that they were giant birds. After that, the similarities ended. Whereas chocobos were beautiful golden roosters, these wingless creatures looked more like ugly grayish ostriches with giant beaks that could quite possibly snap a Tyrannoraptor's neck effortlessly. Gray feathers covered their bodies except for their bald heads and legs, both of which were scaly. The powerful feet were armed with three equally powerful toes, each one tipped by a lethal looking talon. The neck was covered in a fuzzy down all the way to the head, like a chicks', and powerful muscles flexed all the way up to the axe like bill. Small, beady eyes one either side of the head glared down at whatever was below it, as the thing was at least five or six feet at the hip. So, of course, anyone would need help mounting one of these things. It was what Yuffie herself was supposed to be helping Lionel with, but the cyborg told her that he had it handled.

Said medic turned to her as his current patient climbed up into the saddle and took hold of the reins, and said "They're Brutornis. We use them for mounts here in the isles. The land on this entire world is all desert, but it's a little cooler here since we're on the ocean. On the mainland, the natural war between the species is brutally ruled by two killer species: the Brutornis and the Tyrannoraptor. Each one is specially suited to killing the other. It depends on how resourceful and intelligent the combatants are to decide the winner in a one on one, which happens frequently."

He walked over to another man who was saddling up the birds for the wounded to help the next soldier up. Already, three were out the door, and with the one Lionel had just helped, only three remained. The other wounded had been informed of their situation, but not abandoned. There was food, water, and medical supplies in the storeroom, but only enough to last a week. That was how long Donna intended to pull out for.

The Addumanese troops were preparing for another assault, and more landing craft had been sighted. The zeppelin was damaged and had landed somewhere inland for repairs, but everyone knew that they wouldn't survive another attack like the one they had just endured. So, the order to retreat had been issued. Currently, all soldiers who weren't seriously wounded were helping load food, water and ammunition onto wagons pulled by Brutornis teams, as well as leaving as few working weapons behind for the enemy as possible. There wasn't time to collect them all, however, so all they did was chuck grenades down the street, spraying metal, blood, dust and body parts everywhere. Donna intended to leave around sunset, since they'd reach the top of the cliff at night, when they couldn't be noticed.

But, one more thing had hit Yuffie.

She turned to Lionel and asked "What of the wounded here? I know you said you aren't abandoning them, but when the enemy moves in, won't they be in danger? Isn't **that** kinda like abandoning them?"

Lionel looked at her for a second with a frown, then chuckled and grinned, saying "That's right, I almost forgot. You don't know. The Addumanese are famous for the care they give their prisoners of war. They don't put the soldiers to work in the mines, just the civilians. They draft the captured soldiers into their own forces. Our men'll be safe while we're gone, Princess."

"Oi! Don't call me Princess! I'm the Great Ninja Yuffie Kisaragi!"

Lionel nodded, flipping his mechanical arm around to revolver again as he said "Nice to meet you, Princess."

He turned away from her, aiming the empty revolver at the ceiling, checking the sights to make sure it was going to be accurate.

Yuffie was pissed. Not even Leon ever talked to her like that, although, the way things were going right now, it was more like she was Leon and Lionel was her…wait a minute. Leon, Lionel. Their names were similar, and they even looked a little alike, subtract the metal arm, except that their personalities were completely flipped around.

She frowned once more and pointed at the revolver arm, asking "If you've got that thing, why not use it all the time, instead of toting around a shotgun?"

Lionel didn't even look at her and answered "Some of the parts of the gun are used in operating the arm when it's in regular mode. If those parts become over heated, or if the gun jams from overuse, I take a very high risk of causing the arm itself to malfunction. It happened with my first mech-prosthesis."

First? How many arms had he lost?!

Before Yuffie could ask anymore, however, a loud explosion ripped through the air, causing the ground to shake and the giant birds to start squawking in fright.

((A sharp cliffie, hmm? That's your punishment for not reviewing! Hahahahahaha!!! Okay, I'm done acting insane for now.))


End file.
